Thanksgiving

So I made a comment that mentioned my surreal Thanksgiving which elicited a request for a posted explanation. I'm not sure I possess the necessary skills to describe my Thanksgiving, but I'll make an attempt. We'll start with Wednesday.

Boy-child was feeling sickly Tuesday and Wednesday. I was feeling unsympathetic as he is often ill.* By the time I got home from work Wednesday, it was obvious he had to be seen at clinic. Hour and a half wait. Strep throat. (I will mention at this point that I was relieved it wasn't mono). Meantime Girl-child was having a bit of a melt-down and getting no attention from me whatsoever. Thank goodness Nicole was here.

We were going to go to Chicago on Friday for funsies but Boy's illness put the kabosh on that, which Girl-child may never forgive him for. But I get ahead of myself.

Thursday morning Girl-child and I started out the day watching The Parade. She called it The Macy's Day Parade when she was little and it sort of stuck, even though I told her repeatedly that there is no such thing as Macy's Day. This was where normal Thanksgiving began and ended.

We then went to pick up Suzie and my mother to go out for lunch/dinner. We go to the Monte Carlo now because I can't get my mother in and out of my house. Too scary. Steps. To me this is the start of surreal; going to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. Plus, there's no Pato, who is in Chile, and no Boy-child, who is home in bed. Just the girls. My mother, my auntie, Suzie (a close family friend), Girl-child and myself. When getting my mother she fell down in her room; it takes two professionals to get her up. I pretend to help so I can feel useful. (Note that this is why I don't try to get my mother in and out of my house.) At the restaurant we had an appetizer sampler, three people had pasta and two of us had shrimp. The food was good, we had fun conversation and on occasion my mother made random comments. At one point my mother had such a bad coughing fit that the hostess came over - concerned, I'm sure, that someone was going to keel over in her establishment on Thanksgiving. We drove around Lake of the Isles before dropping my mom off, and then we came back home and fed Boy. Sounds like a normal outing, but it's not a normal Thanksgiving outing, at least not to me.

My kids mentioned that holidays are depressing, which is so sad, but we did reminisce about some fun holidays we've had in the past. There was the time my nephew was home on leave from Iraq and the whipped cream exploded, leaving everyone and everything speckled with whipped cream. There was a Thanksgiving spent in Disneyland. Girl-child and I were in Paris one year. A few times we were in hotels and ordered pizza delivered for Thanksgiving. For some reason those were fun and not surreal.

Oh well.

Today, instead of going to Millennium Park and the Chicago Art Institute, we went to see Coco Before Chanel and had pizza at Fat Lorenzo's. No shopping. We arrived at the theater early and had some fun:

Doesn't sound so strange, but it was.

As I mentioned, it's rather difficult to describe.

* We have suggested Boy-child change a few things in his life so that he is sick less. Some of the things mentioned were, sleep more, eat something other than burgers (veggie burgers are still burgers), stop smoking and to exercise some control and maybe not make out with every girl he is attracted to.